Some lessons from the assassination of Gaddafi and implosion of Libya

Why The US And Its Allies Wanted Gaddafi Dead And What Are The Lessons For Future?
Sako Sefiani – 23 January, 2013 – iranian.com

There were 3 major objectives the West pursued from the war on Libya:

1) to gain control of its vast oil reserves for Western companies,

2) to take control of and manipulate the democracy movement to direct it towards meeting their own strategic interests rather than the movement’s, by arming, financing, supporting and finally putting in power their own loyalists (when the regime was forecasted to fall soon, US and European officials met with their “rebels” whom they had selected among the opposition to arm and finance, to form the replacement government), and

3) to undermine and thwart Gaddafi’s efforts at unifying the African nations with anti-colonial predisposition which tended to put regional differences aside and put Africa first. This was analogous to what Chavez has done in Latin America.

Gaddafi might have been many things: narcissistic, egomaniac, dictator and maybe even as crazy and out of control as the media made him out to be, as the Pentagon was preparing for military attack on his country, but what bothered imperialist policy makers in US and their allies in Europe the most was that he refused to take orders from them or put the interests of imperialism above those of African people, and more significantly, as reported in June 14, 2012 issue of The Guardian, he tried to unite the continent to form a “United States of Africa”, with a single currency, military, and economy to stand up to colonial powers which plundered the continent for hundreds of years and left it impoverished.

And it should be noted that the proposition for unifying the continent was not from a resource-poor country trying to share in others’ resources – Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa, which surely was not lost on imperialism. Uniting the continent, or even working and taking steps towards it, would have enormous and far reaching consequences for Africans, and especially imperialists, as it would take away the latter’s ability to divide, conquer and rule, and that had to be in the minds of Western policy makers as they pondered his faith.

The imperialists’ play book must have in big bold letters the simple lesson: “unity is bad, division is good”. This is especially pertinent in Africa where there are Arab nations in the North and non-Arab blacks in the South. This distinction came to fore after the fall of the Gaddafi regime when US-backed rebels began targeting and persecuting the nation’s blacks.

And Gaddafi was not just words when it came to developing the continent and fostering unity. As was reported in the above-mentioned issue of The Guardian, he was instrumental in creating the African Union in 2002 and was its biggest financial contributor. He also made investments in infrastructure and other projects within a variety of poor African countries to the tune of over $150 billon.

A figure such as him, regardless of what one might think of him as a person or ruler, does not fit in imperialists’ plans for dominating and plundering the continent. The US and its European allies want the continent’s vast supply of cheap labor and natural resources, most notably oil, which is possible through pro-West puppets easily manipulated into division and fighting their brethren rather than standing up to foreign corporations and their governments.

As the Guardian observed: the significance of the war on Libya was not so much in overthrowing Gaddafi, as was in eliminating “the fiercest adversary” of US plans for future military operations in the continent which we began to see shortly after his murder in the hands of pro-US “rebels”. The Guardian adds:

“It is no coincidence that within months of the fall of Tripoli – and in the same month as Gaddafi’s execution – President Obama announced the deployment of 100 US special forces to four different African countries, including Uganda” and Somalia.

“Fourteen major joint military exercises between Africom [Africa Command of US military] and African states are also due to take place this year; and a recent press release from the Africa Partnership Station – Africom’s naval training programme – explained that 2013’s operations will be moving ’away from a training-intensive program’ and into the field of ’real-world operations’. This is a far cry from the Africa of 2007, which refused to allow Africom a base on African soil”.

Thus, Gaddafi’s overthrow eliminated an adversary to imperialists’ plans in Africa and opened the continent to more military interventions for control of resources, cheap labor, markets and an opportunity for further military operations for total hegemony over the continent. …more